Isabel Litwin-Davies
What she brings to Sustenra’s work
Across those roles, she saw the same pattern repeatedly: the same programme can look very different depending on where you sit, what information reaches you, and what you are responsible for deciding.
Research asks whether the evidence is sound. Governance asks whether oversight is adequate. Commercial judgement asks whether the commitment is justified, realistic, and understood under constraint. Isabel has worked across all 3, and her advice brings those lenses together.
For clients, that means advice grounded not only in whether a programme is well intentioned, but in whether it is evidenced, governable, deliverable, and likely to hold under real conditions.
Illustrative responsibility: governance of the £132 million National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Research on Interventions for Global Health Transformation (RIGHT) programme, including accountability for partner capability, oversight arrangements, and whether the programme’s design would hold under pressure.
Background
Isabel’s career has moved across research institutions, international organisations, academic environments, programme delivery settings, and commercial organisations.
Her work has included programmes and institutional settings across the UK, Sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Caucasus.
Institutions she has worked within and alongside include the UK’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), and Karolinska Institutet. She is based in London.
For more detail on Isabel’s institutional experience and selected roles, see her experience page.
Isabel founded Project Penda in Tanzania at the age of 16 and has sustained it for more than 15 years. That experience informs a conviction that runs through Sustenra’s work: an initiative should be judged by whether it lasts, not by how it looks at the start.
Selected areas of expertise
- Portfolio governance across public and private funding environments
- Partner identification, vetting, and capital deployment support
- Investment due diligence for social programmes and impact funds
- Governance assessment for research-funded implementation programmes
- Programme stabilisation and structural risk assessment
- Multi-country delivery oversight and performance visibility
- Funding lifecycle design, due diligence, and accountability frameworks
Education
- MSc in Global Public Health, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden
- BA (Hons) in International Development and African Studies, The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London
Work with Isabel
If you need an independent view of whether a funded commitment has the governance, delivery conditions, and partner credibility to perform, contact us to discuss what a confidential engagement might involve.